Page 159 of Fearless

I don’t look up at him. It’s the queen who holds my gaze now.

That is when everything clicks.

Father—myrealfather—taught me to trust my instincts. Never falter. Never leave anything unnoticed. It’s as though I’m back on Loot, facing an Imperial who has ordered me to demonstrate my Psychic ability. So when I speak, the words are sure, unshadowed by doubt.

Even a Mind Reader can be read.

“You know”—I stand slowly, the dress swishing around my ankles—“I meant to thank you again for giving me those books. They kept me occupied on the boat.”

I pick up one of the faded spines on my bedside table, flipping open the front cover. “For Paedyn,” I read aloud. The rose sketched above the words makes me smile faintly.

Calum’s gaze has yet to meet mine.

I set the book among the littered notes, lining up the identical handwriting. “I would add the scroll from my Purging Trials, but I didn’t get the chance to keep one as a souvenir.”

I pick up the photograph next, flapping it between my fingers. “Do you still think I look like my mother?”

Silence.

“I thought it was odd when you mentioned that I looked like her from the pictures you had seen,” I say slowly. “See, we didn’t have any photos of my father’s wife, Alice.” My feet tread a path across the carpet, the dress’s hem lapping at my ankles. “I mean, a Transfer is needed to impress a Sight’s memory onto the page, and it all becomes far more expensive than it’s worth.”

I wave my hands, dismissing the explanation. Then my feet falter, changing course until I’m standing right before him. I lift the photograph between us, forcing those blue eyes onto Iris’s.

“… that is not the only royal you have killed.”

Calum’s words ring in my mind, another piece of the puzzle that is my past.

“But Alice was not the mother you were talking about,” I breathe. “It was the queen you loved. The one who died giving birth to me.”

I’m shaking, every inch of my body. The adrenaline coursing through my veins has my heart hammering against a tightening chest, blood pounding in my ears. The gravity of this truth I have uncovered threatens to bring me to my knees.

“You were Iris’s lover,” I pant, my eyes wild. “And the king’s Mind Reader, feeding him information about the Resistance the entire time. That is why he was always one step ahead.”

Knees trembling, I stand my ground as Calum’s gaze lifts to mine. It’s agonizingly slow, this moment in which I stand between the past and the present.

“So I’ll ask you again,” I say, deceptively calm. “Do I look like my mother?”

When his blue eyes finally meet mine—thequeen’s—I watch him pluck every thought from my head. He reads the mistrust, mulling it over carefully. I stare up at the Fatal, unsurprised when he finally says, “And who else do you resemble?”

This is not the first game I have been forced to play.

And it will not be the first I lose.

So when I send the words to the forefront of my mind, I mirror the shadow of a smile that lifts his lips.

Hello, Father.

CHAPTER 59Paedyn

Father.

The title tastes bitter for any man other than the one who raised me. I stare up at Calum, letting him read every bit of mistrust in my mind. This man was once like a father to me, and now that I’ve discovered he has been precisely that all along, hurt rams into me.

“This is more upsetting to you than I thought it would be,” he observes simply.

“So I’m right,” I breathe. Then a wave of anger rolls over me, smothering the fleeting triumph that accompanies unraveling a lifetime of lies. “You left me on a doorstep!” I throw my hands into the air. “I was a baby! And all so the king wouldn’t find out I wasn’t his child?”

Calum’s eyes grow wild. It is as though something has snapped within him. Like every solemn expression and kind word was an act he despised. And now that I know who he truly is, there is no use for deceit. “The king did think you were his child—and he didn’t want you.”

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